Constellations
by eccacia
Summary: A place for the Snowbarry drabbles and one-shots I've posted on tumblr. Ratings differ for each chapter. #7: Sugar Rush - In which Barry gets Caitlin to dance in the Cortex in the middle of the day, in her lab coat, in the wake of a botched experiment that she isn't supposed to be enjoying as much as she is.
1. Vigil

**Preface:** I usually post my drabbles and one-shots on Tumblr, and recently I've decided to put them together as a collection instead of posting them as individual stories, since these are all stand-alone and most are pretty short (under 2k words). They're Snowbarry-centric. Ratings will vary for each chapter, so I will indicate the rating at the beginning of each. I am open to taking prompts and requests, so you can PM me if you're interested. If you're a guest reviewer you can leave your prompt or request in a review, or you can message me on Tumblr (eccacia..tumblr..com).

 **Notes (11/11/15)** **:** The missing scene in 2x06, when Caitlin says, "Stay with me, Barry…" Caitlin-centric drabble. Timestamps based on the fact that there were still people at work the time that Zoom dragged Barry around town. I have an early class in the morning but ugh this idea seized me with its demonic claws…

 **Word Count:** ~1,600

 **Rating:** K+

* * *

 **Vigil**

 **6:39 p.m.**

When Zoom brings him in, Caitlin shoots out of her chair, and his name is a strangled bird's cry in her throat. Her vision narrows to Barry, bloody and bruised like she has never seen him before, and while she feels movement around her—Cisco silently taking the gun, Harry whispering that he had made a mistake—all she thinks is _no no no no not him oh god please not him_ …

In the end, Cisco saves his life, but it's up to her to make sure he stays alive. She is the first by his side, and she knows with a cursory glance that he isn't breathing. This knowledge creeps to her heart and clenches around it like ice. "Stay with me," she whispers, placing her hands on his chest. "Please, Barry, please—"

When Barry finally lets out a stuttering breath, Caitlin springs into action. She and Cisco drag him onto a mobile bed—Cisco remarks on how strong she is, and she mutters adrenaline, but in truth she is so, so afraid because the threat of losing him is more real than ever, a threat like a dagger on a string hanging over their heads—and she immediately gets to work: she strips him of his suit, hooks him up to an IV, wires him to the heart monitor, checks for broken bones and internal haemorrhaging, and she panics because his list of injuries is nearly as long as a page in her medical textbook, and she wonders if his body can take it, if there is a limit to his regenerative abilities—

She barks at Cisco to bring her her medical equipment. "Barry's going to need stitches," she says. "He's got so many injuries that energy goes to repairing the damage to internal organs first—I have to stitch him up to stop the bleeding—"

Cisco winces at her tone, and quickly brings them to her. She sets her mouth in a thin line and tries to keep her hands steady as she works. _Hang in there_ , Barry, she says, over and over again, even if he cannot hear. _Hang in there_ …

After the stitches, she sets dislocated joints, puts his neck in a cast, wraps sprained areas tightly, and realigns his bones by traction. Cisco stands by in awe, muttering that he had never seen anyone work so fast before, and Caitlin replies shortly that Barry isn't healing as fast as he normally does and it should be a cause for worry—

When she finishes, she sponges the blood from his wounds. She tries to erase evidence of the encounter, tries to erase memory of the fear that gripped her heart when she believed him dead.

* * *

 **10:15 p.m.**

She watches him non-stop in what seemed like four hours of hell before his vitals finally stabilise. By this time she is so tired that she does not even have the heart to be mad at Harry the way Joe is. "Barry's vitals have stabilised," she says. "Let's let him go."

But she supposes that a father's ire cannot be appeased so easily, and she barely follows the scene that unfolds between Cisco, Harry, and Joe. She slinks back to Barry's side at the end of it.

"Caitlin?" Joe says. "You're not going home?"

He and Cisco are standing at the doors of the Cortex, coats on and ready to leave. She smiles wanly, shakes her head and says, "I'm on guard duty tonight."

* * *

 **11:23 p.m.**

She catches sight of the Thai food that Joe had thoughtfully bought for her and Cisco earlier, and realises that in her panic she forgot to eat. But she also realises that she isn't hungry, anyway.

* * *

 **1:09 a.m.**

Caitlin watches him dream.

She follows the outline of his eyes flit back and forth under the skin of his lids, and remembers the time when he was in a coma for nine months, remembers how knowing that he was dreaming was far more comforting to her than seeing that his vital signs were stable. After all, most comatose people had stable vital signs, but they couldn't dream because of extensive brain damage. His dreaming—both then and now—indicates that his memory's intact; it's the surest sign she has that he _will_ wake up.

But she also remembers how his dreaming—or, she hypothesised then, his nightmares—would often precede a blackout: his breathing and heartbeat would become so erratic that even the machines couldn't keep up with his pulse, and on a few occasions, sparks of electricity would dance on his fingertips. He muttered things under his breath: his mother, dead, murdered, blood, knife, father, innocent, prison, and—Caitlin's heart constricts at the memory— _Iris, Iris, Iris,_ like a mantra, a prayer. She remembers instinctively reaching for Barry's hand, in thick rubber gloves, of course, but still against Dr. Wells' and Cisco's advice; she remembers smoothening the crease in his brow in the darkness while Cisco descended to the foundation of the lab to switch on the generators.

Until today Caitlin still cannot fathom why she had reached to touch him, why she tried soothing him the way she did. Maybe it was because he reminded her so sharply of herself, of the times when she would wake from the cold fingers of a nightmare of Ronnie's death, craving heat and human touch…

Right now she wonders what he's dreaming about. He is quiet tonight, she muses. And because she is in a nostalgic mood, she mimics the path her hand had traced on his face so long ago, after his nightmares, before he knew her name, before she knew how much he would come to mean to her. She smoothens the imaginary lines on his forehead with her thumb; she trails it over the shape of his brow, the velvet of his lids; she traces bridge of his nose and lingers over the curve of his lips—

"Caitlin," he breathes, and, startled, she pulls her hand away as if scalded. But she realises that he is still asleep, so there is no way he will know it's her.

And besides, his utterance of her name shouldn't mean anything.

* * *

 **3:21 a.m.**

Caitlin flits in and out of consciousness, and her dreams are so vivid that they feel like her waking moments. She sees Ronnie many times: she sees him again in the chamber of the particle accelerator, walkie-talkie pressed to his chest; sees him disappear into the whirling singularity. As the night wears on her dreams become more and more surreal: She dreams she is walking on a tightrope, her belly round with child, a girl with her hair and Ronnie's eyes; she dreams of an abyss that swallows light beneath her feet; she dreams of eating fire, of knowing the child she is carrying will die; she dreams that she is holding the grey stillborn flesh in her arms, its eyes wide open, accusing, _You could have saved me, you could have saved me…_

She also sees Jay. He is standing on the island of Atlantis, smiling and asking her to come with him; he tells her there are so many things in his world that he wishes to show her, he tells her that she will enjoy the shark-hunting, the dolphin-riding, the mermaid sightings; he promises her happiness. She stares at him from the little white operating room she is in, littered with medical equipment crusted with blood, and she stares at Barry sleeping, breathing, _alive_ , and she shakes her head at Jay and tells him gently, _no, you don't understand, this_ is _my happiness_ …

She dreams of Barry, and she dreams that they are in love. They are on a beach, somewhere far away from Central City, and he is holding her hand. She is wearing a white sundress and he is trying to get her to swim, and she tells him she doesn't know how, and he laughs and tugs at her, says, _do you trust me?_ and she nods, _yes, of course, but I'm terrified of drowning,_ and he leads her to the water and kisses her hands and holds her waist, lips pressed to her shoulder, as she wades deeper and deeper and struggles against the waves, but she knows she is safe because he is holding her.

And when the dream finally ends she feels her heart bursting with light and warmth, and in a daze she whispers to him, _my god, maybe I do love you…_

* * *

 **4:36 a.m.**

When Cisco arrives at the Cortex that morning, Caitlin has finally fallen asleep at Barry's side, her hand intertwined with his. She looks so peaceful that he doesn't have the strength to wake her, so instead he covers her with a blanket and quietly leaves to buy her breakfast.

* * *

 **7:04 a.m.**

When Barry wakes, he feels the ghost of a warm touch lingering in his hand, feels a twinge of sadness for the loss of something he cannot remember having.


	2. Guru

**Summary** **:** Cisco coaches Barry on how to confess to Caitlin. [Snowbarisco drabble]

 **Notes (11/14/15)** **:** Partly inspired by a Snowbarisco gifset on tumblr. I do miss them. Pardon the silliness

 **Word Count:** ~1,950

 **Rating:** T

* * *

 **Guru**

"So, today's the day," Cisco said, rubbing his hands together. "Are you ready?"

"Er." Barry fidgeted with a nearly shredded piece of paper in his hands. "Dude, I'm not so sure about this anymore—"

"Ah ah ah, Barry, no regressing. Let's try this again. What's the number one rule of being a warrior of love?"

Barry groaned. Ever since he confided in Cisco about his feelings for Caitlin a week ago, the former had taken on the role of a love guru with a maniacal gusto that had honestly scared Barry. He had only wanted a friend to share his realisation with, not a friend who would actually tell him to _do_ something about it.

"Cisco, I swear, just because you were a success with Kendra doesn't mean you should take this _waaay_ too seriously—"

"Come on, we need to prep you before she gets back from feeding the meta-humans!" Cisco said urgently, and prompted, "Thou shalt not…?"

Barry sighed and duly answered, "Thou shalt not cower before declaring thy love for a woman."

"And rule number two?"

"Before embarking on an endeavour of love, thou shalt do your research."

"And what is our foremost resource for all things female?"

"Cosmo magazine."

"And within the esteemed Cosmo, what is our seminal text on romantic confessions?"

"'Top 10 Most Romantic Confessions Women Love: The Nerd-Friendly Edition.'"

"Excellent. Now let's have a listen at yours."

"I don't even think Cait is a 'Cosmo girl'—"

"Wait, we have to make this realistic. Pretend I'm Caitlin." Cisco put his hands on his hips and jutted out his chest, and positioned a piece of hair above his right eye, presumably to mimic Caitlin's bangs.

Barry raised a brow. "I don't understand how this is supposed to be realistic…"

"Barry!" Cisco said in a high-pitched falsetto, biting his lower lip with exaggerated flourish. "You needed to speak with me?"

Barry laughed. "Dude, that is the worst impersonation of Caitlin _ever_ —"

"What? I think it's my most realistic to date. You did mention you liked the lip-bite."

"Well, not on _you!_ "

"Potato, potato," Cisco dismissed, and resumed speaking in falsetto. "What is it, Barry? Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

Barry shook his head and held back his laughter. It was at least helping him with his nerves. He really didn't want to screw things up with Caitlin—they had known each other for so long, had skirted the line between platonic and romantic for so long, that Barry was at a loss at how to proceed. He wasn't even certain if Caitlin liked him, but Cisco seemed to think that trivial—he said that given the right "method", which he had dubbed "The Way of the Warrior of Love", Caitlin would be responsive to him. Barry still wasn't so sure, but at least he hadn't angsted over the possibility of unrequited feelings over the past week.

"Hey, Cait, uh, I have something… to tell you."

"Yes? What is it?" Cisco fluttered his lashes.

"I lo—"

"Dude, wait," he said, dropping his impersonation of Caitlin (much to Barry's relief), "you can't start with a straightforward declaration. You gotta butter her up for it first, you know, like use metaphors and all. That's number 1 of the top 10 romantic confessions."

"Cisco, we're all scientists, not lit majors."

"Yeah, but how hard could it be? I mean, all you have to do is use 'like.' Say, Caitlin, your bangs are like… a muddy waterfall…"

"How is that even romantic?"

Cisco paused. "Yeah, nah, never mind. You could probably wing metaphors as you go. How about telling her about the moment you felt all mushy for her?"

"I'm getting to that."

"Okay, let's do that."

Barry cleared his throat and tried to read his handwriting on the much-abused paper in his hands. "Okay, here goes nothing." He wiped a sweaty hand on his pants. "So, Cait, I guess I've always liked you—you've been there for me since I became the Flash, and you were there when Iris turned me down, and… and a million other little times, times that made me think that had me thinking, wow, I want to be with you. But our friendship was too important, and we were always with other people… The only time I really did think about maybe being something more with you was the night we went to the karaoke," Barry paused and looked at Cisco. "Dude, this part is kind of for her ears only."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Cisco said suspiciously. "You guys had sexytimes and _you never told me_?"

"No! No, it was nothing like that, but just… It's…"

"I'm kidding, dude. I understand. God I hope I never get a vibe of you guys… doing _you know_."

Barry coughed. "That'd be awkward."

"Yeah, definitely gross." He fluffed his 'bangs' and reassumed his 'Caitlin' posture. "Okay, chop-chop, back to work!"

"Fine, fine. So anyway, um, the bottom line is, I guess, I'm in love with—"

"Hey guys! What's happening? Who's in love with what?"

Cisco and Barry startled at Caitlin's voice, and scrambled back to the couch where they had been watching movies earlier in the morning. Barry shoved the piece of paper back into his pocket. "Uh," he said. "Um…"

"Barry's in love—" Cisco began, but before Barry could tackle him into the couch, he added hastily, "with a monster!"

Caitlin and Barry stared at him.

Cisco laughed nervously. "Er, you know, bad case of LSS. _He's in love! He's in love! He's in love with a monste-er!_ _Hit me! HIT ME! HIIIIIIAAAAAT ME!_ "

"Is that the song you've been playing on loop?" Caitlin said. "I don't think those are the lyrics…"

"Sure it is," Cisco chirped. "Anyway, gotta go. I… am getting… a vibe that the pizza delivery is here!"

He left, still humming to the tune of the Fifth Harmony song, and surreptitiously gave Barry a thumbs up before he slipped out of the Cortex.

Caitlin shook her head with a rather amused smile. "I didn't know that his powers worked that way."

Barry hardly heard her. It was just her and him in the room now, and she was so beautiful in a casual navy-blue dress and a ponytail that he wanted nothing more than to kiss her senseless—but there had to be due process to this. That was what he'd spent a week on with Cisco, after all. He took a deep breath and stood from the couch. "Hey, Cait, I… I have something to tell you."

"Hm?" Caitlin turned to him, an inquisitive look on her face. "What is it?"

"I," he said, swallowing, and then panicking because the fact that Caitlin might not feel the same way—and the potential awkwardness that might stem from it—scrambled the entire speech he prepared, and all that was in his mind was _I'm in love with you, I'm in love with you—_ "I'm in love with—with, ah, your… your… bangs…"

Her delicate brows knotted in confusion. "Thank… you? Barry, are you alright? You look really pale…"

"I'm fine," he stuttered. All he could remember now was Cisco's shoddy metaphor about muddy waterfalls and it was definitely _not helping_ him right now. "Cait, I," he tried again, "I—you—you look really great," he managed, and when he saw the confusion clear from her face to be replaced by surprise, he continued before he lost his nerve, "I mean, you've always looked great, I always thought you were gorgeous, and caring, and really, really smart, and brave, and gorgeous, and, ah, I guess I've always felt something for you, but felt you were too good for me and you had Ronnie and Jay and I was with Iris and Linda and Patty and I guess there was never really a time when we had no one except that night we went to the karaoke together but I was too scared because god you were so beautiful and—ah—well, anyway, what I want to say is— _I'minlovewithyou_!"

The surprise in Caitlin's face slowly melted into amusement, and then turned into a light blush that Barry decided he rather liked on her, especially since it was because of him—he only hoped it was because she felt the same way and not because she was embarrassed by his bumbling confession—

"Well?" she said.

"Wha…?"

She smiled up at him, and closed the distance between them. "Don't stop there. Kiss me, you fool."

Barry nearly melted in relief. He wrapped his arms around her waist, loving how she felt in his arms, and grinned goofily down on her. "Does that mean that you reciprocate…?" _Since when_ , he wanted to ask, and _why did we not do this earlier, why did it take us so long—_

"Oh Barry," she said, "you talk too much." And with that, she tiptoed and pressed a kiss to his lips.

True to form, Barry quickly got over his initial surprise and proceeded to return the kiss with fervour, snaking his hand into her hair to tilt her head up so he could have better access to her mouth. Her hands curled on his chest before they twined around his neck, pulling him closer to deepen the kiss. A few heartbeats later, they pulled away from each other, smiling and a little breathless.

"I have my own confession to make," Caitlin breathed against his lips.

"Hm?" Barry murmured, distracted by the way she was playing with the hairs at his nape.

"I heard everything."

He froze. "What?"

"I heard everything you and Cisco talked about," she clarified, smiling guiltily. "Everything since how my bangs are like a muddy waterfall."

" _What_?" Barry repeated dumbly. "Uh, well, ah, about that, in my defense that was _Cisco's_ idea—"

"It was adorable," she teased. "I'd love to hear the rest of your little speech."

Barry shook his head, a sly smile forming on his face. "Well," he said, lips moving against the shell of her ear, "someone once complained I talk too much, so maybe I should just show it to you."

When pressed his lips on her neck and began working his way down with his teeth and tongue, Caitlin decided that she rather preferred the show to the speech.

* * *

When Caitlin and Barry emerged from the Cortex twenty minutes later, clothes ruffled and faces flushed, Cisco smiled smugly to himself. He recalled the vibe he had a week ago, just as he had clapped Barry's arm following the latter's confession: he saw himself in a white tux, giving a speech before Barry and Caitlin, and Barry was in a tux while Caitlin was arrayed in a resplendent white dress. In his opinion, they looked as happy and giddy on their wedding day as they did now.

Belatedly, he considered that the vibe _could_ have been fro m another timeline or another earth, but when he saw Barry take Caitlin's hand and whisper something to her that made her smile, he shrugged and figured his meddling couldn't possibly be that bad.

Cisco gave himself a pat on the back and idly wondered if he could, upon mastering his powers, amass a fortune from being a love guru…

* * *

 **Notes:** I'll be putting up the fics I posted on tumblr based on the dates I've originally posted them. Thanks to AReiss215, Raquel, Farewells, Title Unwanted, and Lina for reviewing! I really appreciate it.


	3. The Things That Matter

**Summary:** Barry can't stop thinking about Caitlin and Jay's kiss under the mistletoe. Before he understands what he's doing he's standing in front of her apartment, and they exchange the usual greetings but beneath the pleasantries all he wants to say is that he misses her more than he can admit. Post-2x09, Barry-centric drabble. Partly inspired by Ben Howard's song "I Forget Where We Were", which was on loop as I was writing this.

 **Notes (1/1/16):** Happy New Year, everyone! Or Happy New Year's Eve, depending on your time zone. Here's to more Snowbarry moments next year, and I hope that the holidays have been good to you all because I've gorged myself on more food than I thought my stomach could take… Welp yeah anyway enjoy!

 **Word Count:** 2,300

 **Rating:** K+

* * *

 **The Things That Matter**

It isn't supposed to bother him.

After all, he has Patty. He _likes_ Patty, he really does. And Patty likes him, even trusts him enough to finally open up about her father. And he's happy with Patty, he really is.

But it still bothers him. It bothers him to know for sure that Caitlin likes Jay—that she'd leaned in for the kiss just as he did left no room for doubt.

The image of Caitlin kissing Jay plays again and again in his mind.

It _bothers_ him, dammit, and he doesn't know why.

* * *

He thinks about her a lot over the next few days.

He thinks about the time that she first opened up to him about Ronnie, and how he opened up about his mother. He thinks about the time she was kidnapped by Snart, how he probably felt even more terrified than she did because he knew she wouldn't hesitate to give her life to keep his secret and he couldn't bear the thought of losing her. He thinks about the time that he goes to her to watch Eobard's confession, because she is the first person to truly understand the depth of his grief so he knew she would immediately understand his desperation to move on.

But most of all he thinks of that one night where they go out for drinks and karaoke, the night they try to move on from old loves and toast to future ones. He remembers how his heart stuttered when he saw her in that dress, he remembers how that night felt like a promise. He remembers thinking they will always have each other in between loves, because after that first crushing heartbreak from Iris he gravitated to Caitlin more than any other friend, and before Patty showed interest in him it was Caitlin, again, that he gravitated towards.

But now they are out of each other's orbit, and even if he sees her nearly every day he feels far from her.

It should be understandable, because between Patty and Jay and Zoom and all the other metahumans they haven't really been able to hang out. But he misses her company more than anyone else's.

It should be understandable, but it doesn't mean that it has to be that way.

He's nostalgic for the time they had each other in between loves, for the eerily solid assurance that somehow, even if they are only skirting each other's orbits, they will always have each other to return to.

* * *

The night before New Year, he finds himself in front of her apartment building.

It's not surprising, really, considering how he can't stop thinking about her.

Standing here brings on the same flood of memories he's been turning over in his mind since Christmas, only each one is thrown in sharper relief—the feel of her body in his arms, the way her fingers twined in his as she tugged him into her apartment (before she stumbled and he had to flash her in), the way she'd asked him to stay and how he'd almost said that he never wanted to leave…

"Barry?"

Her voice nearly makes him jump out of his skin. "Cait?"

"Hey," she says, smiling but evidently bewildered. She looks beautiful even in a simple red dress and a classic-cut beige trench coat, and for some reason that outfit makes him think of strolling through the park with her on a windy day, makes him think of holding her hand. "What are you doing here?"

 _To see you_ is his real answer, but that'll make things _weird_ so he fumbles for another excuse. "I… was… buying something for Joe from the grocery. For our New Year's dinner and all."

"Oh, I see. Where are your grocery bags?"

"Um…" Barry inwardly curses himself. For the fastest man alive he sure is the slowest maker-of-excuses. "They didn't have the sauce Joe wanted, so I guess I have to look for it in some other grocery. Uh, you? What are you doing here? Wait, of course, you live here. I meant, uh, where did you come from?"

"The little wine shop a few blocks down," she replies, amused, holding up her purchase. "I'm heading over to the Raymonds for dinner in an hour."

The memory of Ronnie brings a guilt that knocks the wind from his lungs. "Oh. Cait, I—"

"Barry, let's not do this again," she says, expression stern. "I told you to stop apologising. You have nothing to apologise for."

She still insists on that. He would insist otherwise, because he knows the fact that Ronnie saw the need to fly into that singularity is his own fault in the first place, but he pauses when he sees how she's looking at him. Her gaze is soft but sad, and he doesn't like that he's making her sad. So instead he amends cheekily, "I was actually going to ask if we could drink some of that wine before you give it to them."

Caitlin laughs and the guilt eases a little from his chest. She leans towards him and whispers, "We _could_ if we don't get caught."

Barry feigns surprise. "Are _you_ suggesting that we break the rules? Who are you and what have you done with the real Dr. Snow?"

She rolls her eyes, but she's smiling. It's not the first time that he finds himself thinking how pretty she is when she smiles, how glad he is now that she's smiling more often than she did when he first met her. "Well, _Dr. Snow_ decided that her New Year's resolution was to get a life."

"Does getting a life involve getting a kiss from a certain Jay Garrick?" he says, keeping his tone light and teasing, but when he notices the light blush on her cheeks his heart falls a little.

"We were under the mistletoe," she protests.

"You were _flirting_ under the mistletoe," he corrects, perhaps with a little more snark than he intends.

"Fine, maybe we were," she concedes. "Well, the kiss was nice, but not like…" Her eyes widen in the way they do when she makes a mistake—it isn't often, but precisely because the moments are few and far between that he comes to know how this expression is cause for some alarm—and she gnaws on her bottom lip. "Like…"

"Ronnie's?" he supplies, misinterpreting her mistake to be the comparison between Ronnie and Jay. He thinks he knows what she's feeling because he knows it's wrong to compare Patty to Iris, but sometimes he slips and he does. And he won't admit it out loud but he's thinking again how in her life there will always be a Ronnie and there will always be a Jay—the shadow of her past love always reaching into her present one—and how he has no place in that equation. He wonders if she thinks of him as an in-between love, too. He doesn't know if that's how he wants her to think of him.

She gives him a strange half-smile. "Yeah, he's not Ronnie," she murmurs, looking down. After a moment of silence, her eyes shoot up to meet his again. "Um, well!" she exclaims, "it's getting chilly out here. Do you want to come in?"

He laughs. "Are you sure? We both know what happened the last time I went in."

She flushes. "Oh, come on. It's almost the new year, isn't it time for new jokes, too?"

"The new year isn't til tomorrow," he says slyly. "I think I'll keep using this year's jokes while I can."

She rolls her eyes and she grabs his arm, and the suddenness of her touch surprises him. "Just be nice and walk me inside, why don't you."

He thinks it's adorable how she doesn't notice that she's practically dragging him inside, prattling on about a few of the ways she can get him drunk. She only rambles like this when she's nervous or avoiding something, but he's unsure about what set her off in the course of their conversation. He thinks it has something to do with Jay, but he's secretly glad he brought it up because now he knows that her attraction to him isn't as strong as he'd believed.

When they arrive at the door of her apartment she tells him to wait outside for awhile, and in a few moments she returns with three tiny bottles, smiling. "Here you go," she says, handing them to him. "Three of my special recipes. You know, in case you want to get buzzed along with everyone else tonight."

"Thanks," he says. "Glad to know you have my best interests at heart."

"Silly. Of course I do."

"Really, though, Cait," he says, turning solemn as he tucked the bottles in his jacket pocket. "Thank you. It's been a really rough year and lately we haven't been hanging out a lot, but… yeah, thank you for being there for me."

"Wait, I didn't realise that it was time to exchange sappy speeches, because I still haven't written mine," she says, teasing, but her gaze softens and she adds, "Anytime, Barry. And, you know. Thank you, too. For everything."

He laughs. "We're really bad at this, aren't we."

"We're scientists, not politicians. We're entitled to fumble and stutter and engage in all sorts of general awkwardery."

"General awkwardery?" he says, amused, and when she grins and says "You get my point" he falls silent because at that moment, standing on her doorstep, he realises that he misses her more than he can admit. Sure, he has Patty and he has other friends, but Caitlin is different. Caitlin is his safe haven. Caitlin is everything he is looking for and precisely because of that he is too afraid to reach out to touch her and have her—he is afraid that he will ruin whatever is good between them. And so he is content with her companionship: Being with her like this is more bearable than the thought of being together romantically, because romances—whether happy or tragic—can always end. And he doesn't want that to happen to them.

"Barry?" she says, uncomfortable under the intensity of his bright-green eyes. "Are you okay?"

 _But it doesn't have to end,_ a part of his mind says as he beholds her face, and entranced by her, wanting nothing more than to touch her, his hand goes up on its own accord to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, his fingers brushing over her cheekbones and down the line of her jaw. She shivers under his touch, but she doesn't look away; her brown eyes are shining and her lips are slightly parted. His thumb hovers above the seam of her lips and in a moment that feels like a capsule of eternity he moves to touch them, he traces the curve of her mouth, he imagines the curve of her back the night he helped unzip her dress, imagines kissing and knowing all the secret curves of her body—

"Barry," she says again, and she places a firm hand on his wrist and looks away, and the spell is shattered.

He takes a step back, reeling with the implications of what he's just done, reeling with the sudden epiphany that he doesn't only miss her, he _loves_ her, he's loved her for so long he can't even remember when it began, loved her and decided from the very start that he'd rather not be with her than even consider being with her and then losing her—

"I-I'm sorry," he stutters. "I shouldn't—I just—I should go—"

"No, Barry, wait," she says, tugging at his wrist. She bites her lip. "How… How are things with you and Patty?"

"We're good," he says automatically, because that is always his answer to that question and he cannot afford for it to be otherwise. At least, not now. He doesn't want them to begin like this. "We're fine."

"That's good," she says, letting go of his wrist. She smiles but even he can tell it's strained. "That's good." She crosses her arms and picks on the invisible lint on the sleeve of her trench coat. "Well," she mutters, "engage in general awkwardery, check."

He laughs, and the tension between them dissipates. "I… I just really miss you, Cait."

He doesn't think that missing a friend meant almost kissing them on the lips, but if she's also thinking that it doesn't show. Instead smiles wistfully at him and says, "I miss you too. Let's… let's hang out more often, okay?"

"Yeah," he says. "That should be my new year's resolution."

"What, helping me with mine?" she laughs. "Getting a life, I mean."

"I was thinking more along the lines of 'rebuilding the things that matter,'" he grins, "but I guess that works, too."

And as he bids her goodbye and envelopes her in a hug, he tells himself that it isn't a resolution as much as it is a promise—a promise to rebuild, to love her if she will have him, to never let it end, to never let her go. And maybe it's too early for certainties, maybe things will become complicated between them, between him and Patty, between her and Jay—but now isn't the time to think of that, not really, because already the warmth of that promise is blooming in his chest, because for the first time since Christmas the thought of her kissing Jay doesn't bother him anymore, because at least for now they have fallen into each other's orbit, and it just feels _right_. In his heart, he knows that _this_ —here, in each other's arms—is where they're supposed to be.

* * *

Thank you to AReiss215, 1ShannonB, Uma FicWriter, Raquel, .7777, Title Unwanted, tifa1984, Lina, Promise10, Flash frost, Fanfan, smoakretz, and Snowbarryfordays for the reviews! I was going to post this on New Year, but I was out of town and the connection was bad. Guess I can't queue stuff here like on tumblr.


	4. Fathers Know Best

**Prompt from Anonymous on Tumblr** **:** I don't know if you take prompts, but if you do can you write something where Barry's dad visits, and notices that Barry and Caitlin have feeling for each other so talks to him about it? And maybe Joe too?

 **Notes (12/16/15):** Hello anon, sure! I guess I could take prompts. Sorry this took awhile, though. I've been writing parts of this when I felt stuck in writing my other fic (yeah, so… if you see me post assorted ficlets, you know what that means…). Mostly this about Henry & Joe trying to figure out Barry's relationships and ultimately shipping Snowbarry (of course). I've never actually done requests before but I hope you like it.

 **Word Count:** ~1,800

 **Rating:** K+

* * *

 **Fathers Know Best**

For the record, Henry and Joe did not sit out the card game that the kids were playing in order to gossip about them. At least, they didn't _mean_ to start gossiping about them. Besides, it wasn't gossip, per se—it was more like making factual statements about their children's relationships. Which was, of course, a _perfectly reasonable_ and _perfectly respectable_ thing for fathers to talk about.

"So, Joe," Henry began, taking a bite of Caitlin's delicious spinach-and-bacon quiche. "Patty's your new partner, huh?"

Joe nodded, helping himself to a quiche as well. "Mmm. Did Barry tell you about her?"

Henry wrinkled his brow. "Not really, no. All he said was that he's been seeing someone for awhile now, and that they really clicked, and that she's a looker." Henry leaned in towards Joe and lowered his tone. "Naturally I assumed it was Caitlin."

"Caitlin, huh," Joe mused. "What made you think that it was her?"

"When I was in prison, Barry used to come visit me and give me a quick recap of his highlights of the week. At first it was all _Iris this, Iris that_ , but since he became The Flash I noticed that he started talking about Caitlin a lot, too."

"She took care of him when he was in a coma," Joe said. "Don't you think it's natural that, you know, he'd be affectionate towards her?"

Henry scoffed. "Joe, just look at how he talks to Caitlin and tell me that there's nothing romantic about _that_."

Joe gave Henry a dubious look. Now, Joe prided himself in being a very good detective, and he'd been around Caitlin and Barry enough to know that their relationship was entirely platonic. Besides that, there could be nothing romantic about it, because Caitlin had a fiancé and Barry had been pining over Iris the entire time—a pining that he'd believed had been cured by Patty. In any case, surely having other love interests precluded the possibility of a romance between Barry and Caitlin. "All right, Dr. Allen, tell me what I'm supposed to see," he said finally.

"Look at that. Look at how Barry leans towards her every time he wants to tell her something. With Patty he just glances. And he may be holding Patty's hand from time to time, but he's always touching Caitlin. You know, little nudges, holding her wrist so he could pretend to take a look at her cards, tapping her arm when he gets excited to tell her something."

"They could just be very good friends," Joe said, still dubious. "And besides—remember you did not learn this from me—Barry and Patty have done more than just… little touches."

"Already? Since _when_?"

Joe leaned closer to Henry, took a furtive glance at the kids to make sure none of them were looking at their direction or listening in the conversation, and said in a conspiratorial tone, "Some time ago I caught them kissing in the CCPD. Very… _handsy_ kissing, if you know what I mean."

Henry laughed and shook his head. "That's my boy."

" _Your boy_ will get fired if Singh caught them."

"A casanova just like his father was. Fathers, I mean."

Joe rolled his eyes. "You can keep your casanova to yourself. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, Patty and Barry are definitely attracted to each other, more than he is to Caitlin."

"I'm not denying that there's no attraction. But maybe Barry's only attracted to Patty because he can talk to her about the same things he can talk to Caitlin about, and Patty didn't have the whole sensitive deceased-husband trauma. I'll tell you this, Joe, that after Barry told me about Caitlin getting married, he stopped talking about Caitlin at all. When I asked him how Caitlin was he always said, 'She's happy with Ronnie,' or 'She's adjusting to married life,' or something like that. I could tell he was really upset about it. He just didn't want to acknowledge that the cause of it was Caitlin's marriage—"

"Hey Joe, hey Henry!"

"—Caitlin!" they both exclaimed, and lightning-quick, both men straightened their postures and shoved a quiche into their mouths as if they hadn't just been talking about her.

"Come join us in the next round! We can teach you how to play the game," she said, noticing nothing amiss and gathering a few drinks and snacks from the table in front of them.

"It's fine, Caitlin," Henry said, smiling. "We're having a blast here talking about indoor plumbing, just like the old men we are. Your quiche is delicious, by the way."

"Oh, he's the only old man here," Joe said. "I'm just here to solve the case of the disappearing quiche, and this Henry here is my prime suspect."

Caitlin laughed, a light blush blooming in her cheeks. "Well, Joe, tell me if you've solved your case. In the meantime I'll just leave it here so you can lure your suspect."

They shared a laugh. "Sure, thanks, Cait," Henry said.

When she left, Joe remarked dryly, "Well, you're very invested in Caitlin."

Henry shrugged. "I _may_ be biased towards my fellow doctors. And you know what they say, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

"Mmm, this quiche _is_ something, isn't it?" On cue, they paused to take another bite. "But I'm not so easily bribed by food, my friend. I believe my eyes more than my stomach, and maybe I'm biased too towards my fellow detectives. My money's on Patty."

There was a glint in Henry's eye. "Oh? How much?"

"Don't tell me we're _betting_ on Barry's relationships."

Henry waggled his eyebrows. "They'll never know…"

At that moment, Joe and Henry heard a crash.

"What was that?" Joe said, immediately alert and up from his chair, hand on his holster. "I'll be damned if there's a meta-human in my home—oh."

Henry stood up too, belatedly, and saw the snacks and drinks that Caitlin had been carrying scattered on the floor around her, while Barry was sprawled on top of her, head nearly buried in her chest. Henry and Joe blinked once and looked at each other, and Henry started laughing heartily.

"Cait!" Barry said, flushing from embarrassment and immediately climbing off her. "I am so, so sorry—"

"It's fine," Caitlin said, although she seemed equally flustered. Everyone else was a flurry of picking up the mess on the floor and looking for something to wipe the spill away, and no one but Joe and Henry seemed to notice the exchange. Barry grabbed her hands and helped her up, murmuring apologies all the while, while Caitlin kept reassuring him. "I'm fine, Barry, really. You can let go of my hands now."

Now Barry was reduced to an even more incoherent mess. "I'm sorry—I mean for crashing into you and landing on your—and for holding your hands—I mean—"

"Barry, it's fine, it was an accident."

Henry turned to Joe. "Do you think he would be so flustered if he didn't like her?" he said. "Look at him. He's like a kid facing his crush in kindergarten."

Joe sighed and said reluctantly, "Maybe you are onto something."

"If we made that bet I would be asking you to pay up now."

Joe ignored that. "You should talk to him. Just to clear things up, especially for Patty's sake."

"Hm, you're right," Henry said. "It's time for some heart-to-heart talk with my son…"

* * *

To be honest, Henry was a little nervous. He and Barry had numerous heart-to-heart talks before, but it was usually Barry doing the talking; there were very few matters in which Henry felt entitled to give advice, especially since he'd been gone from Barry's life—and civilisation, actually—for quite awhile. He's only met Caitlin a few times, and Patty only once.

But then again, as a doctor, he had always placed great trust in both his reasoning based on facts, and on his intuition. And in this case, he felt that the symptoms, so to speak, that Barry was exhibiting all pointed to a diagnosis of having feelings for Dr. Caitlin Snow.

When Barry arrived outside Jitters the next morning—late, as usual, that boy never changed—and asked, with a smile, what he thought of Patty, Henry cleared his throat and went straight to the point. "To be honest, Barry, I don't think Patty's the one you really like." Barry gave him a puzzled look, and Henry continued, "I know I've only been around her once, and she's a nice girl, but I think you're only attracted to her because she reminds you of Caitlin. You may be attracted to Patty, you may think that you'll always have feelings for Iris, but the truth is, the one you're in love with is Caitlin."

Barry stared at him, utterly dumbfounded. "Patty and I have the same sense of humor," he protested. "That's why I like her."

"Hmm, let me ask you something. When you're in trouble, when you need someone to talk to, who would you first go to?"

For some reason, Barry thought of the time he'd gone to see Caitlin to view the video that Eobard left them. "…Caitlin."

"When you get excited about a meta-human, or some scientific concept or theory, who do you feel like sharing it to?"

"Patty doesn't know I'm The Flash," Barry said, but to Henry his answer only confirmed that he was thinking of Caitlin in the guise of defending Patty.

"And during Caitlin's wedding," Henry said, finally, quietly. "You sounded really upset when you talked to me that day about it, and you said you didn't know why. But I think I do. I think you just haven't admitted it to yourself."

Barry opened his mouth, gaped, and then closed it again. And then he stood abruptly and grabbed his coat. "Thanks, Dad," he said, "I needed to hear that. Be right back."

He flashed away.

Henry leaned back against the seat and allowed himself a self-satisfied smile.

* * *

Before the end of his short three-day stay at Central City, he found that Barry had stopped seeing Patty—it was an amicable break, Barry said—and had had a long talk with Caitlin. They were working things out, he said, but Barry seemed deliriously happy when he talked about Caitlin, in a way he wasn't when he talked about Patty.

When he returned to the Wests after a day of going around Central City one last time, he found a box of spinach-and-bacon quiches with his name. There was a handwritten note on lid of the box:

 _You 'steal' my quiche, I 'steal' your son. Does that make us even? Have a safe trip! —Caitlin_

Henry shook his head and smiled. He can't wait for this girl to be his daughter-in-law.

* * *

Thank you to jdcocoagirl, AReiss215, Flash frost, Title Unwanted, Fanfan, sara holliday, tifa1984, Promise10, and Duchess Emma for the reviews! Favorites and alerts are also appreciated. :) For those wondering when the next chapter of "wonderful you came by" will be out, I am so sorry but my muse fled me after the remainder of the break, but now I'm trying to get myself writing again. Sorry again to have to keep you waiting. In the meantime there's the next Flash episode coming up soon so asdkjdhgjfa


	5. A Mother's Intuition

**Prompt from Anonymous on Tumblr** **:** snowbarry's and olicity's kids fall in love and start dating, they tell everyone at christmas or some other gathering and it bring out all sort of reactions?

 **Notes (12/17/15):** Here you go. It's a short and fluffy Flarrow family fic but I hope you like it.

 **Word Count:** ~1,350

 **Rating:** K+

* * *

 **A Mother's Intuition**

It was supposed to be just another peaceful Team Arrow and Team Flash Christmas gathering. As they had been doing for the past twenty or so years, they were supposed to peacefully eat the dinner that Caitlin Snow-Allen, patron saint of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year feasts, had so painstakingly prepared, peacefully reminisce and joke on the good old days, peacefully exchange gifts, and peacefully be on their peaceful way home.

It was precisely because Christmas was the most peaceful day of the year that the Queen heiress and the Flash's scion decided to announce to their families—after years of constantly hurling insults and threats at each other (excepting Christmas, the only day they agreed to make peace), aggressively competing with each other in every aspect of their lives, and vociferously proclaiming undying hatred for each other's guts—that they were, in fact, _in love_ with each other and consequently had been secretly dating for a few weeks now.

Anya Queen and Cato Allen stared at the faces of their family members and the people they considered as family from their seats, hands intertwined under the table. They exchanged worried glances at the uncomfortable, tense silence that followed their announcement.

Barry was the first to speak. His face was contorted in anxiety and his voice sounded strained. "Of all the girls in school—in the _whole world_ —"

When he broke the silence, everyone else started speaking in unison. Dig said, "Cato, do you have a death wish?" Cisco looked back and forth between the two of them and said, confused, "But you hate each other—" An even more confused Roy chimed in, "Yeah, last week I just showed Anya how to do a proper headlock because she was going to try it on Cato—" Ray Palmer looked downright confounded and added, "Just last week Anya came to me for help on her science project so she could 'beat Cato and serve his balls to him on a platter'—" And Oliver, after he'd recovered from choking on his eggnog, said, "Allen, if you break her heart I will personally break your bones—"

Anya huffed and retorted tersely, "Dad, please. I can break his bones myself if he does."

"The support I'm getting is very encouraging," Cato muttered. "It's a bloody good thing I heal fast—"

"—oh, I'll make sure I'll break your bones faster than you can heal—"

"— _hey_ , have some faith in my son—"

"—thanks for the backing me up, Dad—"

"—not so fast, Cato, I need to talk to you about making good life decisions—"

"— _are you calling my daughter a bad life decision_ —"

"—no, Oliver, Barry's calling _having you as his son's father-in-law_ a bad life decision—"

On the side, Cisco, Ray, and Roy started telling stories on how much Cato and Anya hated each other, and how there were absolutely no signs of romantic attraction on either party.

Meanwhile, the women of Flarrow showed little to no surprise at all, and because Cato and Anya were busy deflecting the threats and insults of the men, the women began talking amongst themselves in perfectly serene and civilised tones. Laurel snorted delicately into her eggnog and said, "Well, there was so much sexual tension between them that it practically bordered on foreplay." Thea agreed, rolling her eyes, and she tried to explain to Roy that Anya would probably be using the headlock for… _other purposes_ , but Roy was too absorbed in his conversation with Cisco and Ray to listen to her. Iris turned to Felicity and Caitlin and said, "You knew all along, didn't you?"

"Call it a mother's intuition," Felicity said, and all the women laughed. But the two mothers exchanged enigmatic looks and smiled innocently. They had not merely known; they had covertly taken pains to matchmake their children from the moment they were born. Of course, Oliver and Barry had assumed that all those playdates and frequent family gatherings, as well as the enrolling of their children in the school that straddled the border of Central City and Starling City, were all coincidences, a byproduct of the close friendship and collaboration between their families—but they were, in fact, perfectly coordinated 'coincidences' fraught with intention. The resilient Queen and Allen matriarchs were not dissuaded even when their children became rivals—it began when they were as young as five, because Anya was older by a few months and used it as leverage to boss Cato around, who would then retaliate by flashing things out of her reach (but then even if he was fast, Anya was stronger and cleverer and was the only girl his age who could wrestle him to the ground)—and even when they confided in them about the passing crushes they had on different boys and girls over the course of their childhood and adolescence. In their minds, their children were destined to be together because it was only with each other that they could freely share the secrets of their identities and the secrets of their families: they were the only ones who could fully understand and sympathise with the other.

Now, Caitlin and Felicity wouldn't go so far as to say that they forced their children together. They merely set the stage and dropped the necessary hints: Little suggestions like "My, don't you think Anya's growing to be quite the woman?" and "Darling, I think you talk about Cato more than you do about than that crush of yours" were sufficient to catalyse their children's inevitable epiphany that their rivalry was a ruse for their romantic feelings. In their view, they never forced anything to happen; they only guided their children on the best possible paths for their lives. And now that they had chosen each other, Caitlin and Felicity couldn't have been any more satisfied.

Compared to the herculean task of giving sound advice to their children in matters of the heart, subduing their husbands was a piece of cake.

Felicity turned to her raging husband and placed a hand on his forearm. "Oliver, I think that's enough."

"HOW CAN YOU BE SO CALM? I SAID ANYA COULD ONLY DATE IF SHE TURNED THIRTY—"

"DAD, STOP CODDLING ME—"

Felicity said serenely, "Now, if Anya knew what age I started dating, and what age _you_ started dating, I'd say that seventeen is already pretty late, hmm?"

Oliver muttered something under his breath, but he took a few deep breaths and said nothing more. Anya—and especially Cato—threw Felicity a grateful smile. She winked at the pair.

"More eggnog, anyone? Barry?" Caitlin said.

"I think I'll have a beer," Barry said faintly.

"Same," Oliver said.

The other men hummed in agreement.

"Cato? Help me with the drinks?"

"Sure, Mum," Cato said, grateful that his mother sensed his eagerness to escape Oliver's death glares. He immediately disappeared to the kitchen and took his time gathering the drinks. When he came back, the women had worked their magic on the men, and peace and order was restored that evening. Sure, there was some tension between Barry and Oliver and Oliver and Cato, but the Christmas spirit had won them over and they eventually made peace. The rest of the evening passed without incident.

That is, until it was time for everyone to leave, and Cato gave Anya a chaste kiss on the lips—but how that situation eventually led to Oliver's setting of strict physical-touch boundaries is a story for another time.

For now, it's sufficient to know that Oliver and Barry had accepted that their children were dating, and that they promised there would be no casualties or "freak accidents" along the way (a promise guaranteed by Felicity and Caitlin, who vowed to keep their husbands on a tight leash). All in all, it was the best outcome that Cato and Anya could hope for from their announcement, and it was such a memorable Christmas that they would later recount it on every succeeding Flarrow Christmas gathering. And yes, they would eventually work towards the happily-ever-after that their mothers had divined for them from the very beginning; throughout the course of their relationship they would continue to be astounded at the accuracy of their mothers' intuition, a mysterious power that Anya would later acquire when she and Cato had their first child…

But, again, that story is for another time.

* * *

I'd forgotten I'd written a Christmas-themed fic, so apologies for the lateness of posting here.

Thank you to AReiss215, blueefaiiry, Aleprettycat, Farewells, jdcocoagirl, Title Unwanted, Duchess Emma, Promise10, and Bunny in a Box for reviewing (especially if you've already seen it on my tumblr)! Love you guys. Hope you're all having a wonderful new year.


	6. Personal Boundaries

**Personal Boundaries**

—or Team Flash's lack thereof. One day, Barry's curiosity gets the better of his common sense, and he asks Caitlin a question that leads to a very awkward conversation.

 **Notes:** Set in some alternate Season 2 timeline, where Patty and Jay aren't around as much anymore (if that'll ever happen) and Team Flash is back to being Barry, Cisco, Caitlin, and Harry, because I'm really missing their moments in the show. Hope you enjoy.

 **Word Count:** ~2,900

 **Rating:** T

* * *

In retrospect, he shouldn't have done it.

Any sane person with a proper sense of decorum and a respectable grasp of personal boundaries wouldn't even have _considered_ asking what he did, especially to someone of the opposite gender. And _especially_ if said person of the opposite gender was someone that he'd always been a tad bit attracted to.

But he couldn't help it. If Barry Allen had a flaw that was as equally fatal as his reckless selflessness, it was definitely his insatiable curiosity. He would never have been as good as he was at his day job if he was otherwise—an insatiable thirst for knowledge practically defined a scientist—but, as he would learn over the course of his extremely uncomfortable conversation with Caitlin, there were just some questions that, no matter how much they pestered the hell out of him, were better left unsaid in the first place…

In any case, this disastrous conversation took place on a slow, ordinary Tuesday at STAR Labs. The only ones in the HQ were Caitlin and himself, since Cisco had left to buy everyone lunch, and as usual, Harry had locked himself up in one of the smaller rooms adjacent to the Cortex. Caitlin was running some statistical tests on his vitals in an attempt to find a way to increase his speed, and Barry contented himself with watching her work.

"Wow," he remarked, unsurprised but still quite impressed by how she had meticulously organised the data. He would have offered his help, but he had a feeling that she wouldn't appreciate anyone messing with her files. "That's a _lot_ of numbers."

"Hm?" Caitlin mumbled, the corner of her lips quirking up. She quickly manoeuvred between the windows on the screen, and ran them through an advanced statistical program that Barry wasn't familiar with. "Oh, well, yes, of course. I keep a record of all your tests."

Barry sped-read the raw data on the screen and furrowed his brow. "You also included the data from when I was in a coma."

"Not all, unfortunately," she replied, squinting her eyes at one set of values. "I don't have the data from the first two weeks of your coma. The hospital wouldn't release your files." She huffed, and moved to switch the printer on. "Apparently being declared your personal physician and having a PhD _still_ weren't enough to authorise me to receive them…"

"Oh," he said, pressing his lips into a line and shifting in discomfort, as he did every time that he thought about those nine months that he was out of commission. It wasn't only because he felt like he'd lost nine months of his life, or because he felt out of place whenever someone would casually mention something that happened during those months; it was mostly because of the nagging feeling that he'd been a burden to everyone, both emotionally and financially. It mustn't have been easy on Joe or Iris or his father to live with the buzzing anxiety that he was never going to wake up, and it mustn't have been easy on Caitlin to be demoted from one the top scientists of STAR Labs to being the personal physician of one of the survivors of the explosion that killed her fiancé. He idly wondered what being his personal physician entailed…

Barry startled in his seat at the tangent his thoughts had taken.

Come to think of it, _what_ , exactly, did Caitlin do as his personal physician? How… _personal_ was the "personal" in "personal physician"?

He frowned. He'd always been under the vague impression that she checked his vitals and took blood samples, but then… There were, after all, more practical and more embarrassing concerns in caring for his prone form, like dressing and bathing him… And how on earth did she even manage to get urine samples from him before he was awake and able to pee in a cup? Did he wear adult diapers? God forbid, did Caitlin—he slumped further into the swivel chair at the sheer horror of the idea— _put_ them on him?

After a few seconds of stewing in mortification at the various mental images that that idea conjured, he tried to clamber out of it by considering that perhaps they'd hired a full-time nurse to take care of him. _That_ was a far more reasonable and far more comforting thought. Now only if it were true…

"Hey, Cait, did you ever hire a nurse?" he said, belatedly realising that his mouth had went and decided to ask on its own before his brain approved of that course of action. "When… when I was in a coma, I mean."

Caitlin was highlighting a series of numbers on one of the sheets she'd printed out. "We did," she confirmed, and Barry was about to run around the room in sheer _relief_ , but unfortunately Caitlin was so focused on her task at hand that she was completely oblivious to his mood. She continued, "…but we realised that we didn't have enough budget for our salaries and equipment maintenance, so we let her go after a month."

He gaped at her. "Oh," he managed to say, although it sounded strangled when it came out. "Oh." Now he slumped back in his chair, the former mortification returning, and he was just as clueless as he was a minute ago. But Barry was not one to give up easily, so he took a discreet intake of breath and asked in a exhaled rush, "So who took on her job after that?"

She didn't even miss a beat. "I did, of course." She lay the printed sheets side-by-side to peruse the trends across tests. "I'm already your doctor, so naturally I took on her duties."

Barry turned scarlet. Oh no _no no._ This can't be what he thought it was. He ran a hand over his face and was half-grateful that Caitlin was so distracted by work that she had less than half her sharp mind about her. But, on second thought, if she had been completely _there_ , she would have been more careful in wording her responses, because what the hell did she mean by duties? And why did it sound so suggestive? Faintly Barry considered that after changing his adult-diapers and possibly also wiping his ass, there was just no way that Caitlin would ever be attracted to him, even if lightning really did give him awesome abs. Wiping feces was more unappealing than abs were appealing, and really, there was just _no way_ that wiping the ass of an unconscious hot naked man could elicit romantic feelings in any female human being. Sure, with some mental acrobatics it could be conceived of as some weird animal mating ritual, but he highly doubted that it would ever be a _human_ mating ritual—

Okay, he wasn't making sense anymore.

Barry took another deep breath and tried to pull some rational thinking from under the overwhelming crush of mortification. So Caitlin might have done… _those_ things—a speculation he had yet to confirm, he reminded himself—but so what? She was just a good friend, right? And before she became his friend, she was a stiffly professional doctor, right? So that meant that she had been completely objective in doing her job, right? He supposed it was inevitable that she would have… sudden… unwelcome… mental images of him naked—god knows he still thought about that time he'd changed her out of that evil dress (but if he were being completely honest, those mental images weren't entirely unwelcome) _—_ but perhaps out of respect for him and for their friendship, she'd never dare tell him about that. Besides, there were still some personal boundaries that even good friends just did not cross, and this was one of them.

But he _really_ did want to know, damn it. Now he knew that if he never asked the question, it would bother him for the rest of his _life_. Besides, he thought weakly, their friendship could survive some awkwardness, right? And besides, Caitlin didn't seem altogether bothered by his questions. If he'd asked something really troubling, she would've surely displayed more alarm…

And so, against the dictum of common sense, Barry barrelled on with his question. "What…" he said, "what… exactly… were the nurse's duties? The ones you took on?"

"Hm, I'm missing a page," Caitlin said to herself, "Strange. Ah, well. I prepared your food, made sure you were properly hydrated, prepared the medication for your lightning-induced seizures… Oh, here it is!"

Well. Barry leaned back on his swivel chair, feeling slightly better. Those all sounded quite… tame, next to what he imagined she'd do. "Thank God," he muttered, with a shaky laugh. "For a second there, I thought you'd, like, I don't know, _seemecompletelynaked_ or something. Silly me—"

"I have," Caitlin said absently, and Barry nearly fell off his chair—because _what in—the hell—did she just—_ "It was quite impressive, actually… Hm, this is the wrong page…"

Now Barry really did fall flat on his face. He groaned at the sound his nose made when it hit the ground, which finally snapped Caitlin out of her concentration-induced haze. "Barry!" she said, alarmed, coming to his side as he struggled to sit up. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"I—I fell," he said lamely, holding his already-healing nose. Caitlin dropped on her knees beside him, gingerly moving his hand away so she could inspect the damage, and seeing that treatment wasn't needed, she pursed her lips disapprovingly instead. "Really, Barry, you should be more careful."

By now Barry was aware that he was blushing so furiously that he felt like he was burning with a fever. He felt so confused and upset and downright mortified that, without thinking, he mumbled, "Well, I would have been if you didn't say what you did."

Caitlin furrowed her brow and frowned. "What did I—?" When she fell silent again, Barry could practically hear the cogs turning in her head, and after a few moments, her brow cleared in comprehension, just before her jaw fell open and before she flushed crimson.

Now she was the one reduced to stuttering. "I didn't mean impressive _there—_ well, not to say it wasn't—oh, god, just, never mind, forget I ever said—because—well, I meant—I meant that your—the _changes_ in your anatomy and physiology were, uh, impressive—and—oh, _god—_ your recovery was impressive—there. Yes. I monitored your recovery the whole time and yes. It was… impressive. Yes. I swear that's all I meant."

"Oh my god." Barry gawped at her. "So you did—you know, uh, well, _you know_ while you were _—monitoring_ —my recovery—"

"Barry," Caitlin said, evidently as flustered and frustrated as he was. "I don't _understand_ what you're talking about—"

"Like bathe me!" Barry finally blurted out, in the unstoppable way that people sometimes do once they've begun doing something recklessly stupid. "Or—or dress me—or any of those nursely duties—"

" _What?"_ Caitlin squeaked. " _Bathe_ —no! Of course not! _No!_ "

"Then who—"

" _Joe_ did," she muttered tersely, rubbing her temples. "Okay, _look_ , Barry, that was beyond the purview of my… professional duties. Since we were all giving part of our salaries to equipment upkeep and for the elements of your seizure medication—yes, you actually needed it, because weren't healing so fast at first, and we didn't think you would survive what the lightning was doing to your physiology—so, you know, we couldn't afford a nurse. And since Joe's practically your father, he volunteered for the job. Does that clear things up?"

 _Of course, why didn't I think it would be Joe?_ Barry wondered. Sure, Joe didn't raise him, but… it _did_ make more sense. He would have revelled in the gratitude that this new information about his adoptive father a little longer, but apparently his curiosity levels were still a lot higher than his common sense, and the nerve he'd built up to ask the first question seemed to be propelling him to exhaust all his questions in one go. So, instead of thanking Caitlin for telling him, he mumbled, "But, well, you got urine samples…"

"Well." Caitlin swallowed. "Well, there were times when I had to, you know. Since it's my _job_ , after all—"

"So… you've actually… really… seen me… um, well, naked?"

"Well, yes, but not for extended periods of time. Except when I had to insert the catheter into your bladder. Like I said, it's part of my job, and I do it very professionally—"

"Okay," he said quickly, his face warming again. "Okay. I get it."

Caitlin fiddled with her hands. "Okay."

They spent a few seconds in awkward silence, and in the space of that moment Barry cursed himself to hell and back, because this was the precisely what he wanted to avoid with Caitlin. Desperate to lighten the mood, he attempted a joke.

"Well, I guess we're even, then," he said.

Instead of laughing, though, Caitlin looked confused. "Even in what?"

Barry wanted to strangle himself. "Never mind," he said quickly.

"Barry," Caitlin said, in that warning tone of hers, "if this is something I need to know—"

"The evil dress thing, okay," he said, deciding that he couldn't out-stubborn Caitlin, anyway. He rubbed his neck and looked away from her. " _Summer lovin', had me a blast_ —ring a bell?"

Caitlin gasped. "You _swore_ you didn't look!"

"I—well, I—you said I _could_ peek—"

She was blushing furiously now. " _Barry Allen!"_

"I'm sorry!" he amended quickly. "I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have. And you still had your underwear on, because, um, yeah, _because._ But I still shouldn't have looked. I'm an asshole, a horny teenager, a—whatever. Yeah. I accept all the insults you'll throw at me."

Caitlin crossed her arms and sighed. "Well, I guess I really did have too much to drink. I'm sorry for putting you in that situation."

"Well," he said, feeling the tension lift a little after her concession, "you don't have to be too sorry."

" _M_ _en_ ," Caitlin grumbled, but now a smile was tugging at her lips. "Well? Do you have any more questions?"

He grinned sheepishly. "No, not really. Sorry for… for all those awkward questions, it's just, I was really curious, and you didn't seem so bothered by them at first—"

"I was _working_ ," Caitlin huffed. "You of all people should know that I'm basically on auto-pilot when people try talking to me then. And it's fine, Cisco and I expected you to be curious, but I thought you'd be asking Joe."

"Nah, learning it from you wasn't too bad. I mean, this brings our friendship to a whole new level, doesn't it?"

Caitlin scoffed. "It could've done without it, really—"

"Hey guys!" Cisco chirped, and Barry and Caitlin startled on the floor at his sudden arrival. "Whoa, what's up? Am I interrupting something…?"

Barry was about to say something, but Caitlin silenced him with a hand on his forearm and a quick devious smile. "Hey, Cisco," she said, "Barry was just wondering about the time he was in a coma, and if you've ever seen him naked—"

Cisco paled immediately. "Hey! I thought we swore we'd never tell him about that!"

Barry gaped at them both and choked out, " _Cisco_ has seen me naked?"

"Dude, let's not go there—"

"I just remembered that he took over Joe's shift once," Caitlin said by way of explanation, but Barry wasn't certain that he liked the idea of _that_. If Caitlin had done it, it was fine, but with Cisco it was just… _weird._

To Cisco, Caitlin said casually, "Don't you think it's our ethical duty to inform him?"

"But it's within the personal-boundary-duty not to!" Cisco wailed.

"But we're all friends," Caitlin said, shrugging. "And you've seen me topless."

"Yeah, well, drinking with you is _never_ a good idea—"

"Barry, you know what this means, don't you?"

Barry was unsure if he liked devious Caitlin over the awkward Caitlin of a few moments ago, but he was glad that he didn't have to completely regret their earlier conversation. Although he _really_ should have thought about Joe in the first place. "What?" he said to Caitlin now, his grin mirroring hers.

"Cisco's both seen us semi- or completely naked," she mumbled, in a tone low enough so that Cisco didn't seem to hear what she said, "but _we_ haven't gotten even."

"Ah, I see."

They turned to look at Cisco at the same time.

"Guys…" Cisco said, slowly backing away, "why are you looking at me like that… Oh god no _don't come any closer—_ someone—Harry! _Harry!_ _HELP!_ "

* * *

Even if they're all adults, I'd imagine they'd still be pretty squeamish about those things, lol. I really enjoyed writing this—it's my attempt at a humorous take on how Barry finds out about the things that happened during that nine-month gap. What's your take on it? Thank you to AReiss215, inmycastleofblue, Yasmim Nayane, and Title Unwanted for reviewing the previous chapter!


	7. Sugar Rush

**Summary:** In which Barry gets Caitlin to dance in the Cortex in the middle of the day, in her lab coat, in the wake of a botched experiment that she isn't supposed to be enjoying as much as she is.

 **Notes:** For my friend Gaby (Title Unwanted), because it's her birthday and because what she said about having sugar rushes inspired this fic. Enjoy!

 **Word Count:** ~1,700

 **Rating:** K+

* * *

 **Sugar Rush**

"So… let me get this straight," Cisco said, tilting his head at the whirlwind of papers that was falling on the floor of the Cortex, "you gave Barry a test serum to increase his speed, and it seems like it's working, but you're upset because…?"

"Well," Caitlin said irritably, snatching whatever papers she could before they got sucked into the whirlwind or floated out into the street or spontaneously combusted or _something,_ because really, at the speed Barry was going he might just inadvertently set himself and everything else on fire, "well, I thought that a few stimulants and steroids would increase his body's energy reserves—"

"You gave Barry _steroids_?" Cisco said in disbelief, swatting the papers away from his face. "Cait—"

"His metabolism can take it," she said quickly, "I made sure of that beforehand, but—"

"—this is pretty awesome, though," Cisco whistled, taking a look at the device that monitored Barry's speed levels, "he's going 2000 miles an hour. That's 500 miles more than his average."

"Yes, but it's also affected his speech and cognition, and I fac—" Caitlin's sentence was cut short with a gasp when a red streak whooshed by her, sending her hair all over her face, and a few seconds later there was a barely coherent yell of " _Whooo! This is great I feel like I can do anything YOU KNOW GUYS WE SHOULD TAKE OVER THE WORLD!"_ resounding in the lab.

Caitlin sighed, plopping on the swivel chair beside Cisco, and said, "I factored in the possibility that he would experience some psychological side effects of intense euphoria and decreased inhibition, aside from physical side effects of rapid-fire speech, but I thought that—"

"So, in short," Cisco cut in, raising his brows, "you gave him something like a sugar rush?"

"Well, yes, it could be put that way," Caitlin said, rubbing her temples. "God, it's been five minutes and he's already been around the city like ten times, and this'll take another half-hour to wear off…"

"Don't we have sedatives?" Cisco said, by now already used to the flurry of papers and office supplies suspended in the mini-vortex of air, "you always keep extras, right?"

"No," she said glumly, "We're out of stock, and at this rate I don't think we can make Barry stand still, anyway."

"We can just leave him like this, right? I mean, what's the harm?"

In the background, Barry was speaking so fast that it was practically gibberish, but even so Caitlin could tell that all his pauses were punctuated with an exclamation point. She sighed. "Well, technically yes, but I wanted him to avoid experiencing the crash."

"Hm," Cisco mumbled, "I'll go check if Harry can do anything about this."

"I'll go with—"

"Nuh-uh!" Cisco sang, wagging a finger at her, " _This_ ," he said, "is _your_ fault, so you're staying to babysit."

She was about to argue, but it _really_ was her fault, so she found herself at a loss for a comeback. "Ugh, _fine_ ," she huffed instead, pushing her hair out of her eyes for the nth time, and in a fit of irritation plucked a rubber band from the vortex and used it to tie her hair in a haphazard ponytail. Really, she mused as Cisco left, she should have checked if they still had sedatives before she administered the serum to Barry—and in the first place she should've had Harry to cross-check the ingredients of the serum. But Barry had also been so eager to try it…

She sighed and made her way to the device monitoring Barry's speed, carefully avoiding any stray projectiles. The screen read 1,927 miles an hour. Caitlin sighed in relief—he was slowing down, so that meant the serum was slowly beginning to wear off.

"Cait!"

She started when she heard her name, and took a step back when the red streak skidded to a halt in front of her. Behind him, the papers and office supplies started falling to the ground in spiral trajectories. "I've been calling your name like a hundred times before I realised you couldn't actually understand me so I had to stop but isn't this _great_! Now I can finally beat Zoom! This is awesome! Amazing! Astounding! Spectacular! Stupendous! —Hmmm give me another superlative because I can't seem to think of one right now they're all crowded in my mind come on I need another super sexy superlative hey that was some alliterating I did there I AM A POET…!"

In reality, Barry spoke like he didn't know what spaces between words were, so Caitlin just stared at his jittery form and waited until he finally ran out of breath. "Okay, Barry, I need you to try to calm down and take a few deep breaths—"

"Cait I can't stay still can we talk while moving can we flash around Central—"

"No!" Caitlin said quickly, "No, Barry, we have to stay here, okay? Your condition is extremely unstable and—"

"Come on please Cait," he said, giving her a look that made it seem like being cooped up in the lab was physically painful to him. "Please please please please please—oh I know if you don't want to flash around we could dance instead!"

Caitlin blinked. "Barry, _no_ , I can't dance—"

"Come on come on come on!" he grabbed her arm excitedly, and at that a memory of her drunk self calling him up to the stage at that bar came back to her unbidden. She groaned and thought that karma really was a bitch. "Here let me just play some music on my phone—" In the next moment, a catchy pop song was playing in the lab, and Barry started dancing the moonwalk, dougie, harlem shake, nae nae, and other dance moves she could no longer recognise in quick, disjointed succession that hardly coincided with the beat, and she couldn't help but laugh.

"You're not dancing," Barry accused, and Caitlin noted that he seemed to have a little difficulty with breathing, and his speech was slowing. "Come on," he said, grinning and holding out his hand to her, and then, almost as an afterthought, he bowed from his waist with a flourish, "dance with me, Dr. Snow?"

"Barry, I _really_ can't dance—"

"Sure you can! Just copy me!" he chirped, pulling her to the middle of Cortex, his phone blaring out another pop song. Caitlin flushed when his hand moved from her forearm to her hand, twining his fingers with hers, and she would be lying if she said that she hadn't imagined this a few times—but she definitely never imagined that they would, well, 'hold hands' in the middle of a lab…

And then he abruptly dropped her hand. "Hm," he muttered, "this is too messy for a dance floor, give me a sec." Caitlin tried not to seem disappointed, and she slowly curled her fingers into a ball, as if to preserve the memory of his fingers there, while he flashed the papers back into their piles and the office supplies back into the drawers. Afterwards, he skidded in front of her again and beamed. "Ready, Dr. Snow? First I'll be teaching you the Math Dance, which was the first dance I ever learned, and which I think you'll appreciate…"

A smile tugged on Caitlin's lips as she watched him demonstrate the moves for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, parenthesis-squared and square root, and before she knew it she was dancing math moves to Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off", to which the moves seemed to be perfectly in sync with. After three repetitions, Barry yelled, "Freestyle!" and in the split-second that Caitlin was at a loss at what to do, Barry had grabbed her hand and lifted it above her head. She understood the gesture, and with a roll of her eyes and a fond smile, she allowed herself to be twirled, once, twice, thrice—

"Barry!" she protested as he sent her on her seventh twirl, although the protest was half-hearted because she was bursting with laughter, "stop!"

He finally did, and it was so abrupt that she swayed a bit, but his hand was immediately on her waist, steadying her. Caitlin's hand grasped his forearm, and she was a bit unsettled at how _close_ he was, how she could feel the heat from his skin from under his suit—he was always so warm—and how his breath stirred the hairs on her head. She bit her lip. Barry smiled.

"Maybe it's time for a slow-dance?" he said. Along with the breathlessness, Caitlin noticed that the manic, unhesitant nature of his speech had gone, and its place was a tentative undertone that was much more characteristic of Barry.

"Tired, Mr. Allen?" she teased, allowing herself to relax in his arms. "Or have you run out of moves to show me?"

"Never," he said, grinning. "But, well, I think I'm crashing. My head's starting to throb."

Caitlin scrunched her brow in immediate concern. "Maybe you should take a seat—"

"It's not that bad," he says quickly, his fingers tightening almost imperceptibly on her waist. "I think I should, you know, take it slow instead of sitting down, since—"

"—right, abrupt cessation of movement could make it worse."

"Right," he said. "So…" he gave her a sheepish smile, "won't you dance with me?"

Caitlin placed her hand on his shoulder and smiled back. "Well, since this whole thing was my fault, I suppose I can keep you company."

"Hey, it wasn't so bad," he said lightly, as they swayed to the tune more mellow pop song, "I mean, I got you to dance."

"You'll tell no one about it," she said, feigning a look of stern warning.

"My lips are sealed," he said solemnly, "since your dancing _is_ worse than your singing—"

She made to step on his foot, but he anticipated the movement and quickly slid it to the side, and she ended up stomping the ground with a force that left her foot tingling afterwards. He grinned at her flustered expression. "Keep insulting me," she said, sulking, "and I'll make sure that you'll never get rid of that headache…"

Barry laughed and nudged her into another twirl, and Caitlin allowed herself another smile. They weren't any closer to improving Barry's speed or to defeating Zoom, but sometimes these detours were important, too, in their own way.

* * *

Much thanks to anskyfighter, Angel-of-the-Seas, AReiss215, Aleprettycat, fannieherr, Title Unwanted, jdcocoagirl, Duchess Emma, and inmycastleofblue for reviewing. If you haven't heard of the math dance, you should look it up, although I don't know what YouTube calls it... Anyway, have a great week!


End file.
